Illinois – A Holocaust denier, antisemite and white
supremacist is about to become the Republican nominee for an Illinois
congressional seat.
Arthur Jones, a perennial candidate since the 1990s for the
GOP 3rd Congressional District representing parts of Chicago and its
southwestern suburbs, in a political fluke is the only Republican candidate on
the ballot, the Chicago Sun Times reported Sunday. The primary will be held on
March 20, 2018.
Jones, 70, is a retired insurance salesman. His candidate’s
website for his current congressional run, “Art Jones for Congressman,” says by
way of introduction: “I am not now, nor have I ever been a follower of any
political party, though I am a registered Republican.”
A section of the candidate’s website headed “Holocaust?”
says that “The idea that ‘Six Million Jews’ were killed by the Nationalist
Socialist government of Germany in World War II is the biggest blackest lie in
history.” It also calls the Holocaust a “racket” designed to “bleed, blackmail,
extort and terrorize the enemies of organized world Jewry into silence or
submissiveness to Zionism and communism – both movements founded, financed and
led by Jews. “
Jones is a former leader of the American Nazi Party and now
heads a group called the America First Committee, which he told the Sun-Times
is “open to any white American citizen of European, non-Jewish descent.”
Tim Schneider, chairman of the Illinois Republican Party,
said in a statement to the Sun-Times: “The Illinois Republican Party and our
country have no place for Nazis like Arthur Jones. We strongly oppose his
racist views and his candidacy for any public office, including the 3rd
Congressional District.”
In 2016, Jones was removed from the 3rd District GOP ballot
in legal actions engineered by the Illinois Republican Party, which determined
that his nominating petitions had too many faulty signatures, according to the
Sun-Times. This time, Jones was more careful to have valid signatures and could
not be thrown off the 2018 ballot.
The 3rd Congressional District is one of the most heavily
Democratic in the state, and Jones will most likely be defeated come November.
The Republican Party does not heavily invest in fielding a candidate for the
district since he or she likely will lose, which is how Jones came to be the
only candidate.
Jones said last spring in a speech to a National Socialist
Movement gathering that he was sorry he voted for President Donald Trump, who
has “surrounded himself with hordes of Jews” including his Jewish son-in-law
Jared Kushner, the Sun-Times reported citing a YouTube recording of the speech.
